Breakaway
by stardust2002
Summary: Kara's story. Songfic set to Kelly Clarkson's 'Breakaway'. Kara,Zack and Kara,Anders pairings.


**Breakaway**

Kara's story. Songfic set to Kelly Clarkson's 'Breakaway'. Pre-mini stuff is purely my imagination. Light spoilers for season 2.5. Kara,Zack and Kara,Anders pairings.

**ooooooooooooooooooooooo**

_**Could have been a small town and when the rain would fall down**_

_**I'd just stare out my window**_

_**Dreaming of what could be and if I'd end up happy**_

_**I would pray**_

Kara knelt on the couch, arms resting on the back as she stared out the window. The rain was falling heavily, as it frequently did in the little town she lived in, preventing her from playing outside. The clouds were so dark and thick and the rain so insistent that she could hardly see a thing. Except the lights in the sky. They lit up the commercial jetliners as they criss-crossed her home on their flight path. Glints of hope in an otherwise dark and dreary world.

She'd been fascinated by them as long as she could remember but when she told her mother she wanted to become a pilot when she grew up, her mother had just laughed at her.

"Only _smart _people get to do important jobs. You'll never be good enough for that."

Her initial reaction had been hurt, as at so many of her mother's comments, but the passage of time had only crystallized her desire to prove her mother wrong.

_**Trying hard to reach out but when I tried to speak out**_

_**Felt like no one could hear me**_

_**Wanted to belong here but something felt so wrong here**_

_**So I prayed, I could break away**_

"No Kara, you can't waste such talent. A player like you only comes along once or twice in a coach's lifetime. Stick with me girl and we'll go places. I'll make you famous."

Kara had excelled at all sports during her school years, but pyramid was her specialty. She was good, damn good, and her coach knew it. He'd pushed her to go pro after she graduated, even after she'd told him to wanted to apply to flight school.

"Your grades aren't that good," he'd told her frankly, "and you have a lot of trouble obeying authority." _Wonder where I learned that from! _"You have the perfect skills and disposition to become a pro athlete. I can get your face on the cover of every magazine in the colonies."

"But I want to fly," she'd argued, feeling like she was talking to thin air. No one listened - no one ever listened to what _she _wanted, that's why she'd embarked on the beginning of her career in disobedience. If other people wouldn't let her be what she wanted, she'd go ahead anyway.

_**I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly**_

_**I'l do what it takes till I touch the sky and I'll**_

_**Make a wish, take a chance, make a change**_

_**And break away**_

_**Out of the darkness and into the sun**_

_**But I won't forget all the ones that I love, I'll **_

_**Take a risk, take a chance, make a change**_

_**And break away**_

Kara sat looking down at her leg, twisted at an unnatural angle, but she didn't feel the pain. All she felt was relief. She could tell from the dire looks on the medic's faces that her knee was shot for good - she'd never play professionally again. Their faces, and the faces of her teammates held sympathy, but she didn't need it. Didn't want it. Finally she was free.

She'd been living the life mapped out for her by her coach, who'd sworn she'd be a superstar, and her mother, who'd looked at her with cubits in her eyes from the moment she'd been told her daughter was pyramid gold. Kara had done what she'd been told, gone where they'd led because she didn't know how to fight for what she really wanted. It wasn't that playing pyramid for a living was bad - she loved the game - but for so long she'd wanted to be flying free, leaving the shackles of the planet behind.

Now she finally had an opportunity to realize her dreams and no matter what anyone said, she was going to take it, once she was able.

_**Wanna feel the warm breeze, sleep under a palm tree**_

_**Feel the rush of the ocean**_

_**Get on board a fast train, travel on a jet plane**_

_**Far away, and break away**_

It was exhilarating. Everything she thought it would be and more. It was her destiny. She flew through the courses (quite literally) till there was nowhere for her to go but the Military Academy to learn to fly spaceships. She embraced the opportunity with no fear and when, after graduation, they offered her a job teaching, she was only too happy to take it. Finally, she was doing what _she_ wanted to be doing. Finally she was happy.

Then _he _walked into her life. Into her class, more accurately, but his blue eyes stole her heart from the first moment she looked into them. They spoke to her in a way no one else ever had before. Sure, she'd had a few encounters with guys - quick fraks, no strings attached, but she'd never felt this way about anyone. She wasn't even sure _what_ the feeling was, but whatever it was, it held her heart hostage. And it scared her.

_**I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly**_

_**I'll do what it takes till I touch the sky, and I'll**_

_**Make a wish, take a chance, make a change**_

_**And break away**_

_**Out of the darkness and into the sun**_

_**But I won't forget all the ones that I love, I'll**_

_**Take a risk, take a chance, make a change**_

_**And break away**_

She'd never really been one to follow rules, so dating one of her students wasn't a big problem - it was just avoiding getting caught.

She finally figured out exactly what the feeling she had for him was - love. Their time together was the most intense, amazing time of her life. Being with him gave her a high like only flying could previously, and when they made love it was like she was spinning freely up in the heavens. Absolute ecstasy.

His death hit her in places she never even knew she had. Her heart, which Zack had awoken, now beat within her chest like a lump of dead metal. Yet again, she was lost.

She could have continued on teaching but she felt ill at the thought of living here without him now.

The opportunity came when the old man offered her a place on Galactica. She wanted to take it and run, but she wasn't sure she could live with Zack's father day in and day out and not be constantly tortured. In the end she decided to go ahead because the demon she didn't know _had_ to be better than the one she was already living with. And the old man needed her. As much as she needed him.

_**Buildings with a hundred floors**_

_**Swinging with revolving doors**_

_**Maybe I don't know where they'll take me, but**_

_**Gotta keep movin' on, movin' on**_

_**Fly away, break away**_

The skies were hers again. Life was hers, her destiny was hers. She was free.

She wasn't perfect, not by any means, but she'd learned to move past what his death had done to her - to his whole family - and continued on. She still screwed up - frequently according to the looks Lee gave her, but she could live with it, even when screwing up with him. There was an unspoken agreement that no matter how bad things got between them that they could always come back to that space they shared. And it was liberating for her to know that _something_ in her life was stable, would always be there, always the same.

They nearly crossed the line of no return but even then were still able to pull it out of the fire and come back to where they'd been before it had all gone wrong. They were okay, and that was the only thing keeping her grounded.

Now her spirits were free to soar.

_**I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly**_

_**Though it's not easy to tell you goodbye, I gotta**_

_**Take a risk, take a chance, make a change**_

_**And break away**_

_**Out of the darkness and into the sun**_

_**But I won't forget the place I come from, I gotta**_

_**Take a risk, take a chance, make a change**_

**_And_** **_break away_**

"I can't believe you're doing this." There was cold anger in his voice and his eyes were like lasers boring into her.

"I didn't go all the way to Caprica to rescue him just to let him go again."

Lee's tone became mocking. "So I guess he's more than just a quick lay huh?"

Kara's anger flared instantly, as it always did with him. Then it ebbed away. She didn't want to fight - didn't want their last words to be angry ones.

"I love him," she said quietly.

"Then by all means, go." He waved his hand toward the door. "Love _is _more important than anything else."

"You just don't understand do you? I need to do this - I need to get away. I have a chance to really _live_ for a change."

"Go. Just don't expect to be welcomed with open arms when it doesn't work out." His tone was harsh.

He turned his back on her and stalked out, slamming the hatch behind him.

Kara walked sadly over to the hatch and placed her hand softly on it. "I hate to leave you." A single tear slid down her cheek, ending up on her lip. She tasted the saltiness of it.

"I won't forget you. I won't forget you either," she added, running her hand along Galactica's smooth, metal wall. "This is home. It will always be home, but I have to do this. I have a chance to make a change - make my life better. I can't let it slip away."

_**Break away, break away.**_

_Fin_


End file.
